Risking it all
by codeman-320
Summary: When Sonic and Tails can't seem to find excitement in their lives with Eggman gone, They desperately try to find some. In the search for excitement, they awaken the chaos emeralds whom are also trying to fulfill their goal in killing anyone who has used their energy.
1. Chapter 1

In another dimension, Knuckles stands in its foggy world with the wet grass beneath his feet. There's no one around him, yet it looks like he's speaking to someone, "you can't go on with your plan." Knuckles says to someone we can't see.

Another voice speaks out through the fog, "You have no control over our decisions young echidna."

"I might not, but the Master emerald does and when I get back to my world I'm going to..."

The other voice interrupts, "We cannot allow you to return to your world for you are on trial."

Knuckles doesn't understand, "What have I done to be on trial here?" He asks in disbelief.

"Many of us have agreed on your failure as a guardian of the master emerald and if you are guilty, then you will be executed."

Knuckles gasps in shock. He becomes angry, "I am a great guardian. The evidence is right before your eyes, the Master emerald is still in one piece!" He yells at the other voices.

"Yes it is. But in the past you have failed by letting the evil scientist steal it many times for his own evil deeds."

Knuckles tries to plead forgiveness, "It was a mistake, please!" He cups his hands together, "I beg of you, don't punish me for these simple mistakes. Eggman is long gone now, there's no need to worry about him stealing the Master emerald or the chaos emeralds." he assures them.

"That is exactly why we decide to act now; since there is no more evil upon us, we must take back the power we have given to your friends or anyone else who has used the chaos emeralds."

"But don't you see? taking back the power from others will kill them in an instant!" Knuckles tries to convince them.

"That is a risk we are willing to take."

Knuckles has no idea how he can convince these people. So he stands there in debating defeat with his head hanging down.

The sun was close to setting behind the ocean line and Sonic is standing on the shore of the beach, in front of Eggman's tombstone. He's looking down at it. He smiles and says, "What I wouldn't give for one more adventure..." Sonic's been bored out of his mind ever since Eggman passed away. Running to him just seems boring now since he'd be running without a purpose. Every day Sonic visits Eggman's grave and watches the sun set at the end of the day.

He looks at the ocean in front of him and oddly enough he decides to walk towards the water. He doesn't stop until the water is waist high. He figures that maybe he should stop there but he feels confident enough to keep walking until everything but his nose and up aren't covered. He wonders if he should keep going and if he should risk drowning just to feel that old feeling of excitement again. He takes a deep breath and continues walking until he's completely under the water.

He looks around the underwater world and sees how beautiful it is. He wishes he could learn how to swim, just so he could spend the whole day enjoying the view under the ocean. A fish passes by his view and Sonic very gently rubs his finger across the fish as it continues swimming by. He doesn't feel like walking too far under the ocean because he's afraid that he wouldn't be able to make it back to the surface fast enough if he needed air. So Sonic just sits down in the sand, under the water with his arms resting on his knees that are propped up. He sits there for minutes and minutes waiting for his need for air to appear.

"Sonic?" Tails calls from the surface of the beach.

Sonic could hear his voice and immediately stands up out of the water then turns around to face Tails.

Tails jumps in surprise shock, "Whoa, what were you doing in the water?" He asks with his heart still racing.

Sonic begins walking up towards the sandy beach and stops when he's behind the tombstone, "trying to find some excitement." He says as he lazily leans forward against the tombstone.

"I know what you mean." Tails says understandingly with a smile, "I don't know what to create anymore with Eggman gone."

"What do you mean?" Sonic asks.

"Well, whenever I created stuff, it was to use against Eggman and his evil stuff." Tails explains.

"And since he's passed away, you don't feel the need to create your arsenal of defensive weapons." Sonic guesses.

Tails nods, "Exactly." He sits down in front of the tombstone.

Sonic walks around the tombstone and sits down next to Tails, "I understand little bro. I can't seem to find any excitement out of running. It's like having supersonic speed doesn't mean anything to me anymore because there's no reason for it."

"We can't exactly just sit around for the rest of our lives, Sonic." Tails says.

"I know, but what else can we do?" Sonic asks Tails and himself.

"How about we go see Knuckles and see what he's up to?" Tails suggests.

Sonic shrugs, "that's not a bad start. Sure, let's do that." He stands up along with Tails, "On the way though, we have to figure out what else we can do for the remainder of the day."

Tails points to the sun setting, "But the day's almost over." He points out.

"Then we plan for tomorrow." He suggests with a smile.

"That sounds good to me." Tails says giving a smile back.

Both of them travel back to Tail's workshop and power up the Tornado. They set course for Angel Island in hope that something exciting awaits them.


	2. Chapter 2

Sonic and Tails had just landed on Angel Island just a few minutes ago. They wander the forests trying to find the Altar to the Master emerald. With the moon high in the sky and the stars filling up the dark skies, it's really hard for them to find their way around the island. There are times when they can hear things moving in the trees, bushes or the tall grass. Sonic wasn't scared at all though; Tails on the other hand couldn't help but look left and right every time he heard a little noise.

Eventually they found their way through the forest and in front of the Master emerald altar. When they first set eyes on the altar, they found it strange that Knuckles wasn't there to protect it. Sonic tried calling out to Knuckles, "Hey, Knuckles where're you at?!"

There was no answer and all he could hear was the low humming of the Master emerald resting in its place a top the altar.

"Where do you think he could be?" Tails asks.

"Sleeping?" Sonic guesses without giving it any thought.

"Away from the emerald?" Tails questions his bad guess.

"Okay...I don't know!" Sonic replies with annoyance, "I hardly ever see him anywhere but with the Master emerald so, yeah..." He begins scratching his head trying to think of where Knuckles might be.

"Should we go looking for him?" Tails asks with a worried expression.

Sonic gently shakes his head, "No, I think he's just fine. The island is still standing so I don't think we should worry just yet." He assures Tails.

"You're probably right." Tails says with a nod of his head.

Sonic begins to ascend the stairs of the altar when Tails notices, "What're you doing, I don't think he'd want us up there when he's not!" Tails whispers loudly.

"If worse comes to worse, I'll just step down before he throws a tantrum." He shrugs like it's no big deal and continues to ascend the stairs.

Tails doesn't feel good about all of this but he sucks in his gut and follows Sonic up the stairs very slow like.

When they finally make it to the top, Tails notices Sonic staring at the Master emerald with a stare that means he wants something very badly. Tails tries to bring Sonic back to the real world by shaking his arm, "Sonic, what's wrong?" He asks.

"I got to try to something..." he mumbles toward Tails as he walks toward the altar.

On the pedestals around the Master emerald are the chaos emeralds. But there are only 6 of them since Eggman destroyed one of them to bits.

"What are you going to do?" Tails demanded an answer because he was getting pretty fed up with Sonic doing risky things.

"I'm just going to borrow..." He plucks one chaos emerald from a pedestal, "These emeralds for a little midnight run." He keeps going around the Master emerald taking the emeralds from there pedestals until he gets to the last one. His arms are filled with beautiful gems when he walks back over the Tails.

"I have a bad feeling about this. Maybe you should them back." Tails thinks he can feel something lingering around them, like bad spirits. His eyes wander as if he knows something is watching.

"Not a chance and this could be a good lesson for that irresponsible Echidna." He says trying to convince Tails that he's not the only guy taking risks, "Leaving his little emeralds lying out in the open for people to take." He says as a matter of fact, "Doesn't he ever learn?" He laughs.

That's when the chaos emeralds begin to float in mid-air and spin around Sonic.

Sonic's getting excited, "Oooh this is it, Tails!" He closes his eyes to await the super transformation, "hopefully tonight will be the best night I ever had." He mumbles quietly to himself. The emeralds start to make a humming sound which means that their power is charging up. When he thinks the chaos emeralds are turning him super, they actually end up shocking him very violently. Sonic screams in pain and falls down to his knees, "What's happening?" He asks himself. It was getting hard for him to breath and he was also feeling sick to his stomach. Eventually the emeralds stop shocking and fall to the stone ground of the altar.

Tails kneels down by Sonic's side, "Are you okay?" He asks worried.

Sonic doesn't say anything because he's so freaked out. He turns his head to look at the fallen chaos emeralds and he freaks out even more by pushing himself backwards while he's still on the ground. He looks at the emeralds like their fierce predators about to eat him up, "Maybe we should go, Tails." He tries to say calmly but fails miserably when his voice trembles with fear.

"You read my mind. Let's go home." Tails says feeling half the amount of fear as Sonic is.

They run down the stairs of the altar with the risk of almost falling. They run through the forest trying to remember where they parked the plane. Sonic was feeling paranoid now; He was now looking around the forest and reacting to every little rustle of the bushes and crunches of the dry leaves and broken sticks.

Eventually they find the plane and jump in. Tails was so freaked out; he was shaking so badly that he was having a hard time putting the key in the ignition. They felt like something was after them.

"Come on, Tails hurry up!" Sonic yells at Tails feeling nervous.

"I can't stop shaking!" Tails yells back. He then tries holding his shaking arm with his other hand. He very gently inserts the key and turns it, starting the engine.

Both of them cheer for a second.

"Punch it!" Sonic refers to lever that moves the plane.

Tails moves the plane forward until it was ready to take off into the air and when it was, Tails didn't hesitate to take off super-fast.

When Tails takes off like a bat out of heck, Sonic ends up flying backwards and his head hits the metal part at the top of the seat. He can't tell if he's hurt or not because of the sudden adrenaline still rushing through his veins. He doesn't think about the pain, but instead he thinks about how good it will feel when he's back home and away from those emeralds that he didn't understand why he feared so much.


	3. Chapter 3

Its night time and Tails is still flying the tornado plane. Sonic sits in the passenger seat in the back and watches as Angel island becomes smaller and smaller the farther away they fly from it. Sonic has calmed down some and he's able to think about what happened on that Island a lot more clearly. The only theories he could come up with was an unfamiliar spirit. Another theory about the Altar being booby-trapped was out of the question because he and Knuckles were friends now and Sonic doesn't think he would do that to him.

The ride home is very quiet and neither Tails nor Sonic speak to one another the whole time. He could hear the purring of the plane's engine and the noise is very relaxing to Sonic and he begins to close his eyes and rests them.

There was a loud bang against the plane that makes the whole thing shake for a mere 2 seconds until it stops. Sonic awakes from his 3 second nap in surprise, "What was that?" Sonic asks no one but himself. From behind Tails, Sonic could see that Tail's concentration wasn't broken at all; his eyes were locked in front of him. Sonic figures that he has to be the one to check out the damages; He looks over the left and right side of the plane and he couldn't find any dents or scratches. He shrugs and sits back down, "Probably just a flicky..." He assumes.

Sonic slowly closes his eyes to prepare for another nap until halfway through his lids closing, he notices someone through the tiny cracks of his eyes lids. Some unknown person is climbing onto Sonic's side of the plane. His eyes swing open and he's able to stop the spear that this person thrusts at Sonic. His back is pushed against the side of the seat as he tries his hardest to stop the spear from entering his heart. He looks at Tails and calls for his help, but Tails doesn't answer. Sonic looks back at this unknown person, he can't make out what this person looks like because of the night covering him in darkness.

Sonic kicks the person in the face.

The person falls back but he keeps holding on to the side of the plane.

Sonic crawls towards Tails to see what was wrong. That was when he saw the problem, Tails was dead; His eyes closed and his head resting back on the seat. There was a red bloody mark on his chest and where the heart is. Sonic assumes that person's spear must've impaled Tail's heart and killed him.

Sonic could hear the murderer getting his grip back on the plane behind him. As soon as Sonic turns around, the person comes at him with the spear. Sonic moves out of the way just in time before the spear could impale his throat. Sonic grapples with this unknown person and tries to push him against the tail of the plane with his own spear pushing against his neck. Sonic has the advantage here to do whatever he wants to do; throw him off the plane or reason with him.

"Why did you kill my friend, what do you want?!" Sonic's questions were coming out so fast; he didn't know which one he wanted to focus on.

The clouds above them finally moved out of the way of the moon and its bright light gets rid of the shadow covering this unknown person's face.

Sonic was in shock, the person he was fighting was Knuckles? No, it looked like Knuckles but he really looked like one of those warriors from Knuckles past; the people that helped Tikal's father destroy their way of life by accident.

Sonic was so surprised, that he wasn't concentrating on the fight anymore.

The warrior took advantage of this moment and pushed Sonic on his back. He held Sonic's hands down, took the spear and forced it down into Sonic's heart.

Sonic screams bloody murder and that's when he opens his eyes for real in the real world.

He wakes up nearly drenched in sweat. He looks around and realizes that he's in his bed. It was morning outside as he could tell from the sunshine pouring into the windows. The pain in his chest felt so real that he actually checked out the spot. He threw the blanket off of his body and looks down at his chest. There was nothing on his chest, nothing had stabbed him, it had been all a dream. Had they really gone to Angel Island and witnessed a haunting at the Altar of the master emerald? This was a good thing to ask Tails as soon as he enters Sonic's bedroom.

"Sonic, you're finally awake." Tails comes over to his bedside and sits there, "That thing must've really freaked you out."

"It really happened?" Sonic asks surprisingly.

"I wish it didn't." Tails says sadly.

"What happened after we left?" Sonic asks.

"Well, we escaped whatever was chasing us, and you passed out from shock." Tails explains.

"I was really that scared, huh?" Sonic chuckled softly as himself.

"I don't blame you." Tails chuckles with him.

Sonic gets out of the bed and stands for a moment in thought.

Tails looks at Sonic. He's curious about what Sonic might be thinking about and that's what he asks him.

"I had a dream and it involved Knuckles." He turns around to face Tails, "I have this strange feeling that he's in trouble." Sonic admits.

"Are you sure it was him?" Tails asks.

"No, but it was someone in his race."

Tails was confused and so Sonic begins to explain further, "It was one of those warriors from Knuckles past life, he was trying to kill me."

"Maybe you were just scared from what happened at Angel Island, It doesn't necessarily mean it's a sign, Sonic." Tails tries to convince Sonic.

"Whether it was a sign or wasn't, I need to know for sure." Sonic walks out of the bedroom and into the living room where Tails stops him in his tracks.

"What are you going to do?" Tails grips Sonic's arm to stop him for a moment.

"I need to go back to Angel Island; I think the answer lies there."

"We can't go back; we barely made it out of there last time!" Tails is annoyed at Sonic for thinking of doing such a thing.

Sonic pulls his arm out of Tail's grip, "Fine, you can stay but I'm going." He pushes the front door open and walks toward the garage where he knows Tails parks his plane during visits. He pushes a button on the side of the garage that opens the shutters. He goes in and pushes the plane outside.

"We can figure this out some other way. Please don't go back." Tails begs.

Sonic hops into the pilots seat and begins turning everything on. He looks over at Tails, "I'll be back, don't wait up." the engine turns on and the propellers begin to spin faster and faster. The plane moves forward and goes faster until it's in the air. The wheels underneath the plane disappear into the bottom of the plane. The plane keeps flying into the sky until it can't be seen through the glare of the sun.


	4. Chapter 4

The sun is just about to set when Sonic flies through the air in the tornado plane. Sonic plans on confronting this unknown spirit at the Master emerald altar on Angel island. He doesn't know how it'll turn out but he also doesn't expect everything to go smoothly. He wasn't doing this for himself, he was doing this for Knuckles, his best friend, because he was extremely worried about his whereabouts. After the dream he had this morning, he had a gut feeling that it had something to do with Knuckles, even if Knuckles wasn't in the dream.

Sonic lands the plane on the edge of the island near the outskirts of the jungle. He turns off the engine and jumps out of the plane. He walks towards the jungle entrance one step at a time on the hard dirt ground. Once inside the jungle and surrounded my many trees and tall grass, he begins to feel nervous as if someone was watching him. He takes a deep breath and follows the dirt path in front of him. On his way toward the Master emerald altar, he hears animals in the distance; Monkeys yelling and some other animal snorkeling and growling. None of these sounds were close to him, so he wasn't in any immediate danger, yet.

He reaches the Master emerald altar. He takes one look upwards the stairs and begins to climb them. Sonic reaches the top of the altar and that's when he noticed something different; The emeralds that were on the ground before, were now back on their pedestals that surround the Master emerald in the center. Sonic didn't know exactly how to contact these spirits, so he just improvised.

"Hey, I'm back. Show yourself!" He called out and hoped he was getting the right person's attention.

As Sonic was expecting, a small ball of light came out of the blue chaos emerald and floated towards Sonic. The ball then stopped in front of him and morphed into a shape of a body and then the body showed it's true face of an Echidna warrior from the past. This warrior wore face paint and small rings that wrapped around each individual dread-lock on his head and He also carried with him a pointy spear.

"Bossy much?" the Echidna smirked.

"I didn't come here to joke around." Sonic says with a serious tone.

"Of course not. You came here to ask about your friend, right?"

"That's right."

"Well I'm afraid you're out of luck."

"What'd you do to him?" Sonic demanded an answer.

"Nothing..." He smiles once again, "yet."

Sonic steps forward, "Look, I know Knuckles can be a goofball, but whatever he's done I can promise you it won't happen again." He assures, "so just please let him go..." he pleads softly.

The Echidna's face turns serious, "then you have just lied to me, have you not?" he points out while taking a step toward Sonic.

Sonic's confused, "What do you mean I lied?"

"Your friend Knuckles, as you call him, has failed to protect the Master emerald many times along with the chaos emeralds. With one of our chaos emerald brethren deceased, he has again failed as our guardian." the Echidna explains with anger in his voice.

"Knuckles is a great guardian." Sonic says in favor of Knuckles, "You're just too stupid to realize that." his words pierce the Echidna's feelings.

The warrior takes his spear and thrusts it into Sonic's stomach and shocks him violently with it.

Sonic screams in pain and falls down to the ground while holding his stomach.

"Watch your tongue young hedgehog, for it shall cost you dearly!" The warrior has had enough of this debacle and so he comes up with a solution that might settle this deal once and for all. He looks down upon Sonic whom is still in pain from the shocking, "If you want to save your friend, then you yourself will have to take his place at the execution."

The pain in Sonic's stomach was subsiding and he is able to stand up, but very slowly. He looks the warrior in the eyes, "You'll kill him I don't, won't you?" He felt cornered because he couldn't find another way to save Knuckles. These are the Chaos emeralds he's dealing with right now and they can over power Sonic at any given opportunity.

"That is essentially the plan."

Sonic stood there for a moment in deep thought, this was all too difficult to think about. The choices were too limited.

The warrior is getting irritated at the wait of Sonic's answer, "My patience is wearing thin, hedgehog. You must give me an answer within 24 hours and if I do not get my answer, I might just come after your other friends." He smile and chuckles evilly.

Sonic becomes angry at the warriors words. He looks up at him with fire in his eyes and aims to charge at the warrior, "Don't you threaten them!" Forgetting that this warrior was only a spirit, he passes right through him and falls on the other side.

The warrior stands behind him, "Until you get me my answer, This Island will be off limits. You better run back home, you wouldn't want to drown in the waters below would you?" His laugh echoes for a moment as he disappears back into his chaos emerald.

The Island shakes like a violent earthquake.

Sonic stands up and looks far ahead. He can see the Island disappearing like an eraser rubbing off pencil ink from a piece of paper. Sonic jumps down all the stairs at once and heads through the jungle. As he runs through the jungle, he can still hear the voice of the warrior.

"Run faster, hedgehog!" The laugh of the warrior echoes in Sonic's head.

He reaches the end of the Jungle and see's the plane ahead. He runs toward the plane only to see the ground beneath it break apart and fall of the island. Sonic feels doomed at this point, He had no way of getting back home now. He turns around and watches as the last bit of the island disappears before him. He had no idea what to do, and before he could think of something, the ground beneath him disappears.

Sonic falls through many clouds in the sky passing before him. He could hear the wind pass by his ears as he falls. He looks down and can only see a glimpse of his plane still falling. He didn't know if it would work or not, but he was going to try to sky dive towards the plane and see if he could start it up before both of them hit the water. He positions his body downwards like a rocket falling towards earth. He puts his arms by his side and his legs close together. His speed increases greatly and he is getting closer to his plane by the second.

His hand almost touches the left wing but it was too late. The water came at Sonic too fast and he smacked the surface so hard that it knocked him unconscious. The plane slowly sinks into the ocean and bubbles up until it's completely out of sight.


	5. Chapter 5

Lying in the dark, Sonic felt woozy from the long fall into the ocean. His eyes were closed and he couldn't really move all that well. As he was beginning to wake up, he realized that he wasn't in the ocean anymore. He noticed he wasn't anywhere but the dark. His head still lies down on the black ground. He hears a young woman's voice somewhere in the darkness around him.

Her voice warns Sonic in a tense and scared tone, "You mustn't let them capture you, you must run and protect all that matters to you before they find you!"  
Sonic can hardly understand what this woman is saying. Her words were muffled behind the ringing in his ears. The voice disappears and is replaced by the cries of other voices, some familiar voices.

"Wake up, Sonic. Are you okay?" it sounded like Tail's was close.

"You think he's going to be okay, Tails?" that other voice sounded like Amy's Sonic's eyes slowly open up. First the world was a blur until his vision began clearing up.

He saw Tail's and Amy kneeling over him. Their faces showed fear of their friend Sonic's safety until they saw Sonic's eyes open up. Tail's and Amy's faces changed from fear to relief with a smile.

"Sonic, you're awake!" Amy cries out as she jumps on Sonic and cries into his chest, "I was so worried that you weren't going to come back."

Sonic puts his hand on her head, "I'm okay, Amy." He wasn't exactly sure if he was actually okay. He hadn't moved yet to feel the results of the fall. He decides to try to sit up; Amy moves to the side and he leans forward a bit and that's when the pain finally came to. His ribs hurt very badly and he falls back onto the ground. The soft impact made him wonder where he was at. He turned his head to the left and saw sand and the ocean, He was on the beach.

"You shouldn't force yourself to move, Sonic." Tails tells him, "Take it slow."

"Let us carry you home." Amy suggests.

Sonic agrees to let them carry him home.

Tails and Amy helped Sonic up and put his arms over their shoulders so he wouldn't fall down from the pain. The walk back to his house was very painful, each tiny step on the ground made his ribs feel like they were being stabbed over and over again. Eventually they made it back to his house in one piece.

Sonic lies in his bed and still unable to move very well.

"Wait here," Tails says, "I'll go fetch the first aid." He exits the bedroom and into the bathroom where he finds the First aid kid under the sink. He comes back with the kit and sits at Sonic's bedside. He tells Sonic to turn on his sides.

Sonic turns on his side.

Tails looks at Sonic's side and finds big bruises on them, "I'm going to need an ice pack for this." Tails stands up once again and exits to the freezer in the kitchen.

Amy stands at the end of Sonic's bed just watching as he breath in and out very heavily from the excruciating pain in his ribs. She decides to act and finally ask, "Why'd you do it?" the room was in absolute quiet.

Sonic hesitates to answer her.

"Was it because you were worried about Knuckles?" Amy asked.

"I needed to know what happened to him, that's all." Sonic answers the best he can without flinching from the pain.

"Did you find out anything?" She moves to sit on the other side of the bed.

Tails enters the room with an icepack. "I found out that the chaos spirits are prosecuting Knuckles." Sonic says.

Tails overheard and spoke after putting the icepack under Sonic and against his ribs, "but Knuckles hasn't done anything wrong."

"According to them, Knuckles failed as a guardian of the Master emerald and their planning to execute him if he's guilty."

"Sit up." Tails tells Sonic.

Sonic sits up.

Tails takes a long bandage and wraps it around Sonic's waist to keep the icepack in place against his ribs, "lay back."

Sonic lies back down.

"Knuckles is a great guardian, no one could his job better than him!" Amy was mad about this new found news.

"We know, Amy." Sonic says, "But apparently it's not up to us, it's up to the emeralds themselves to judge Knuckles." there was a slight angry tone to his voice, but he wasn't lashing out at anyone. Just the fact that what the emeralds are doing is natural and that there's probably nothing he can do to change it.

"There's got to be some way we can help him, though." Amy starts to say, until Sonic jumps in.

"There's nothing we can do, Amy!" Sonic yells. "We cannot go against emeralds, they will kill us!" He regrets yelling at her, but the fact that she just doesn't understand what the emeralds are capable of and what kind of damage they can inflict on people; it just pisses him off. He thought she would've understood by now,but he assumed wrong.

Amy's heart was pounding hard in her chest from the sudden outburst from Sonic. She doesn't know how to react to this. Since he's hurt, she assumes that she's suppose to be gentle and kind, but how is she suppose to take his anger and yelling all of a sudden?

"I'm sorry, Sonic." That's all she could say until she runs from the room quietly sobbing to herself.

Sonic drops back down to his bed and covers his eyes with his forearm. He's ashamed about what he's done.

"What was that about, Sonic?" Tails was feeling quite shocked as well.

With his eyes still covered in shame, "I'm just afraid, Tails..."

Tails moves closer for comfort, "Of what?" "Of failing to be the hero." "No one's asking you to be the hero, Sonic." Tails says.

"I know no one's asking me, but sometimes it feels like people are expecting me to be." Sonic admits, "with every new villain that comes around, I'm the first one to step up." He drops his arm to his side, "And now it feels like everyone is watching and waiting for the day to be saved by me. It's so much pressure, Tails."

"I understand, Sonic. I know what the pressure feels like." Tails admits.

"Really, when did you feel the pressure?" "I'll tell you later." Tails stands up from the bed, "I think you should apologize to Amy first. I'll go get her." Tails exits the bedroom to look for Amy. He calls and calls for her as he walks down the hallway towards the living room. When he reaches the living room, he saw the front door was wide open. Chills run down his spine and he runs back to Sonic's bedroom in a panic.

"She left." Tails says to Sonic.

Sonic attempts to sit up in panic but his bruised ribs stop him. He only bends slightly sideways on his elbow, "What do you mean she left?" he asks with a paining wince in his voice.

"She must've left the house in a hurry because the door was wide open." Tails explains while also feeling confused about Sonic's reaction, "What's the problem, you can just apologize later."

"The problem is that the emeralds are planning to kill me and you guys if I don't give them an answer in the next 24 hours!" He attempts to get out of bad while having that pained look on his face.

Tails rushes over to his side to stop him, "an answer to what?" He asks as he tries to get Sonic back in bed.

"If I want to risk my life to save Knuckles!" He says struggling against Tail's grasp.

Tails stops for a moment to register what Sonic had just said. He looks at him in disbelief, "You would really die to save Knuckles?"

Sonic had no words. If he said he would risk his life, then he might look bad, but if he said he wouldn't, then he might look bad also. He just sits there stone faced.

"What about us, Sonic?" Tail's eyes begin to water, "Have you even thought about asking how your friends would feel about making decisions like this?"

Silently but clearly, Sonic replies, "I haven't made the decision yet, Tails."

""yet"" Tails repeats, "I guess you still might choose to risk it all if you say, "yet"".

Sonic didn't know how to reply to that. It's true that he might decide to take his own life to save Knuckle's, but with how Tail's is reacting to the news, he might have to plan his death bed a little better if he does make that decision.

"I'm going to go look for Amy. Rest easy." Tails doesn't hate Sonic, he's just disappointed in him. He decides to leave Sonic in his bed as punishment since he's already injured. "No Tails, wait!" Sonic calls out for him but it was too late. Tails had already closed Sonic's bedroom door.

Seconds later, you could hear the closing of the front door as well. Sonic falls back onto the bed, his head sinking back into the pillow. He grunts and moans at his ignorance to actually tell Tails that he might actually sacrifice himself to save Knuckles. He could hear the crunching of the grass where Tails is running upon until the sound dissipates. He looks up at the cceilingand asks himself this one question, "What am I suppose to do?"


	6. Chapter 6

No one had come back all day. Sonic had been in bed for mere hours and no one had come back to see if he was alright. He knows that the reason was because of his selfishness to sacrifice himself to save Knuckles. When he thought about it, there was actually good intentions in there also, but he guesses that the thought of Sonic not being around anymore was the first thing on their mind. He couldn't take lying in bed anymore, instead he took a deep breath and prepared for his ribs to cry out in pain as he attempted to get out of bed. One leg out of the sheets and onto the floor; there was no pain. He felt a little bit of pain trying to get the other leg onto the floor. When he tried to sit up and turn around, that's when the pain hit him like a brick wall. He closes his eyes tight and clenches his teeth while growling at the intense pain.

He slowly stands up and puts some weight on his legs. It felt like walking for the first time as he tried to exit his bedroom. He hasn't been off of his feet for so long that he's finally feeling the results of running; His leg muscles felt really sore with every step that he took. Sonic couldn't believe how badly he hurt because he's usually fighting Eggman and he's never hurt this bad after the battle. Once he finally gets out of his bedroom, he takes another 10 minutes trying to get to the front door. He wants to go to Eggman's grave and see if he can figure out a way to solve this chaos emerald problem once and for all, since his friends are mad at him at the moment. He opens the front door and looks upon the world in front of him. It's dark out now, the stars are showing and the crickets are singing. It's a real peaceful day for a walk but for Sonic it's probably going to be more painful than peaceful. Sonic exits through the front door and shuts the door behind him, leaving the house with only the bright moon to light up the inside.

On the way towards Eggman's grave, the pain in his ribs seem to become easier and easier to deal with. Sometimes he couldn't even feel the pain anymore and he just unwrapped the bandages around his waist and dropped the icepack into the dirt road. Once he makes it to the tombstone of Eggman, he just stands there for a moment and thinks about what to say. He takes his time reading the tombstone over and over again until he can figure out what to say until it hits him.

"Hey, doc." Sonic finally greets the tombstone.

He's silent once again as if he's giving Eggman a chance to speak.

"I know you can't speak to me because well...you're dead." He forces a chuckle that didn't sound right, "But I need some advice." He kneels down in front of the tombstone, "I'm running blind here, doc. The chaos emeralds are planning to kill me and my friends and now my friends won't even talk to me." In his head, he pretends to hear Eggman asking, "why?"

"I haven't made the decision yet, but I'm thinking about sacrificing my life to save Knuckles." Sonic sits down and crosses his legs, "You probably think it's a stupid decision to do that without thinking of my friends first...And I would agree. Even if I talked to them about it, they would probably say no before I could open my mouth." He stops talking to stare at the tombstone again, "I'd like to know what you think I should do; let the emeralds take me, or let them take all of us…"

"You shouldn't do either one." An unfamiliar feminine voice says out of nowhere.

Sonic looked confused and he stares at the tombstone more intensely and with more curiosity, "Your voice sounds awfully girly today, Doc…" Sonic says.

"It was I who said that." The voice came from behind Sonic this time.

Sonic quickly turns around and looks up at a familiar face, only this time it was blue and transparent, like a ghost, "Tikal?" Sonic wonders out loud.

It was Tikal from when Sonic was sent into the past to witness her father and the warriors charge towards the master emerald to take the power for themselves only to be stopped by that Chaos monster made out of liquid.

"That is correct, it is me, Tikal. Your memory serves you well, Sonic." She smiles at Sonic.

"How...what are you…" He stutters trying to find the right question to start off with. Tikal puts her hand up as to stop Sonic from embarrassing himself.

"I've always been around. But when I overheard you talk about the chaos emeralds threatening your lives, I had to show myself in order to help." Tikal explains.

"How can you help when you're just…" He gestures toward her transparent body, "that?"

"I have connections with the chaos emeralds just like your friend Knuckles the echidna. All echidna's have spiritual connections with the emeralds if you haven't already known yet."

"Can you tell them to postpone the execution so I can have more time to think?" Sonic asks.

"I'm afraid it's not up to me. The Queen is the only one that can make decisions like that." Tikal says.

"Is there anyway I can speak with the Queen?"

"You must be deemed worthy by the other chaos emeralds in order to gain access to their world." Tikal explains.

Sonic realizes that's out of the question because Angel Island is gone thanks to that green emerald spirit, "So there's absolutely no way to communicate with the other spirits?" Sonic asks rubbing the back of his neck in frustration.

"If you can find another doorway to the chaos emeralds dimension, then there might be hope." Tikal says.

Sonic feels a little hope coming back into his soul, "What could I use for a doorway?" Sonic asks approaching Tikal a little closer.

"The only way into their world is through a chaos emerald."

Sonic groans at that fact as he walks away with his fists clenched in the air, "There are no emeralds to be found though!" he says coming back to Tikal.

"I'm very sorry, Sonic." Tikal apologizes.

Sonic breaths slowly to calm himself down, "me too…" He thought he was out of luck until he remembered something; If his memory serves him right, again. During the time when him and Tails infiltrated the space colony ark, Tails had made a fake chaos emerald that shared the same qualities as a real chaos emerald. His smile was coming back to his face, "I know what to do!" He yells toward Tikal. When he tried to grab her shoulders to shake her in excitement, his hands went right through her, "Oh yeah…" he remembered she was a ghost, "but I know where to get a chaos emerald. I got to go." Sonic starts to run when he yells back to her, "It was nice seeing you again!" then he was out of sight.


	7. Chapter 7

On his way to tell Tails the news, Sonic remembers that Tails had gone to find Amy. Tails could be anywhere by now. He checks the first place he thinks Tail's will be; his workshop. As he approaches the workshop near the beach, Sonic notices that the shutters are closed. Sonic wonders if Tails had closed the workshop for some reason or maybe he had locked himself in there. He walks closer to the shutters and calls out to Tails, "Are you in there, buddy?" He bangs on the shutter doors. Maybe Tails is still mad at him and so Sonic tries another alternative, "Tails, I'm sorry about what I said earlier, can we talk about this?" But there was still no answer.

He feels something; a tingling sensation down his spine. Is someone around? Is someone watching him? He turns around slowly to see if anyone was standing behind him but yet there was no one standing there. The spirits, he remembered, maybe the chaos emerald spirits are spying on him somehow, "time's not up yet." he whispers to the spirits if they're actually floating around close by. Sonic turns toward another direction and tries for Amy's house. He speeds off down the dirt road.

He skids to a stop in front of Amy's house. The lights are on inside. Maybe she's okay, Sonic assumes. He jogs to the front door of her house and knocks on the front door. No one answers the door. He tries calling to her this time, "Amy, it's me, Sonic!" still no answer. Sonic's is becoming annoyed and so he opens the door without permission and walks into the living room. There's nobody inside the living room, it's completely empty, "Where could they be?" Sonic wonders aloud.

From behind Sonic comes the chaos spirit that taunted him before upon Angel island, "They've gone from this world, young hedgehog." He says with a taunting smile.

Sonic turns around to see the spirit. When he laid eyes on this familiar character, he grew angry at the sight of him, "What've you done with them? Sonic sneers.

The spirit laughs, "You creatures are so gullible." He steps closer, "Did you really think I would give you a set time limit to make up your mind?" He says sincerely.

"If you hurt them, then you might as well take me as well." Sonic says bravely.

The spirit unleashes his spear, "That's the plan." He says with a smile and then thrusts his spear into Sonic's gut which in turn began painfully shocking him.

The pain was too much to handle for Sonic, but he knew he had to go through it in order to see his friends again and save them if it's possible. He tries is hardest not to give up. Surprisingly, Sonic was able to grip the middle of the spear and that's what he used to endure the pain. He gripped the stick as hard as he could until the pain stops.

"Yes, just give in to the pain, it'll be over soon." The spirit assures. The way the spirit was smiling, some people might deem him insane, but he was just enjoying the power he had way too much.

Sonic began to disappear, his body becoming transparent like a ghost.

"almost there…" the spirit assures again but with a faint whisper.

Eventually Sonic disappeared completely, leaving only the chaos spirit inside the house alone.

"Time to go…" the spirit then disappears and leaves the house empty and the front door wide open.

Sonic reappears inside a whole new world. The shocking pain he once felt from the spirit's spear is no more. The grass he touched when he reappeared looked dead, felt wet and solid like morning dew. He looked around him and could see nothing but thick grey fog. He looks up into the sky and the fog was also making it hard to see the sky.

A hand grabs Sonic's shoulder and pulls him along forcefully. Sonic takes one look at the person pulling him and saw that this person looked just like the other echidna spirit that was shocking him before, but this one looked a tad buffer and taller and he didn't have certain color aura around him.

"Hey, what's the big idea?" Sonic wasn't liking the rough pulling of the echidna warrior.

"Quiet prisoner!" The warrior commanded with his deep growl of a voice and shocked him once with his own spear.

The shock made Sonic fall to his knees.

The warrior didn't stop pulling Sonic along even if he was being dragged now through the wet grass and occasional mud. The warrior finally broke through the fog and into a small area in the shape of a heptagon. The spirit threw Sonic down the short flight of steps like he was a tiny rock.

Sonic hits the stone pavement and groans at the pain of impact.

"Sonic the hedgehog…" A woman's voice yells and echoes across the dimension, "Rise!" the voice commanded.

Sonic jumped at the sudden volume of the command. He pushes himself up onto his legs and stands. Looking at his surroundings he could see 6 other echidna warriors standing on their corner of the heptagon atop the stairs, but one of the corner's was empty, "why?" he wondered in his head. His eyes made their way to the center of the heptagon where a large woman sat in her throne wearing vintage clothing from their past like Tikal wore, "Who are you?" he asked.

"I am the queen. You people refer to me as the Master Emerald." She explains.

"So you're the spirit of the stone of power?"

"That is correct, young hedgehog." she's impressed by Sonic's knowledge, she smiles warmly.

"If you're so powerful, why is your world so grey and depressing?"

Her smile changes to seriousness, "My power weakens, as does the chaos emeralds when they are used frequently against evil forces."

"So your grey world, is because of Eggman…"he begins to think back to Eggman's death and the giant green beam of light that nearly sucked the life out of him, "and you killed him because of that."

"He killed one of my children," She gestures toward the empty corner of the heptagon where there was no warrior standing there like the rest of them, "And we had to hand out punishment for his misdeed."

Sonic understood that in a way. Eggman did a bad thing and therefore he was punished for it. But for some reason he couldn't help to think of how wrong it was too. He didn't know how to object or agree to her explanation since he thought she was right and wrong about both, so he just changed the subject, "Why'd you bring me here?"

"You noticed how our world is bland to the eye and you know the reason for it. You have used our power more than anyone I've known." She explains.

"And?" Sonic grows impatient.

"Your body carries enough of our power that we could use it to restore our world back to life, but in order for that to work, we must take your life as well."

He's put off by the part about taking his life, "Why my life, why can't you just take the chaos emeralds energy instead?"

The queen opens her palm and aims it at Sonic's stomach area. Sonic's stomach is now see through and you could see his entrails and everything.

Sonic looks down at his stomach and wonders what she's doing until he's surprised at what he's seeing; Everything inside of Sonic is glowing a bright light and his veins looked as if they were filled with light as well.

"You've absorbed so much of the chaos emeralds energy, that you are now living on it. Any injury you may receive will heal in minutes."

"So you really have to take my life to give yours back…"he couldn't believe it. In a way, Tails was right. Using the chaos emeralds do have consequences and he's been too careless to listen to Tails.

"Will you cooperate with us or join your friends?" The queen asks as a piece of the stone ground rises behind her throne. On the stone wall that rose from the ground were Tails and Amy and a mystical light chained them to the wall.

Amy's eyes were puffy and red as if she was in the middle of crying, "Sonic, help us." She begs with trembling breaths.

Tails on the other hand looked scared but he wasn't crying.

"Where's Knuckles?" Sonic asks in anger from looking at his other two tortured friends.

"The former guardian of the Master Emerald is no longer here." She explains in monotone.

His heart felt as if it stopped, "You killed him?"

"We didn't. We merely stripped him of his guardian title and sent him back into your world as a normal echidna."

Sonic was relieved to know that Knuckles was still alive but he wonders how Knuckles may feel about not being a guardian of the Master Emerald anymore?

"What will it be, young hedgehog?" The queen starts, "save our world and your friends, or save our world and have them executed?"

"Either way, you're getting your power back aren't you?" Sonic asks.

"Precisely." There was no joy on her face, only seriousness. She wasn't as crazy as the green warrior, she was just doing her job. He didn't know what to do, he couldn't out run or fight these people, he was trapped. He was outnumbered in strength and speed, "I have no choice." He said in his mind.


	8. Chapter 8

Sonic was at a loss. The queen, whom is a spirit that lives inside the Master emerald, has given him two choices, and they both end in death. The death will in turn help save the dimension in which the queen and her servant warriors live.

Restrained to a stone wall, Tails and Amy awaited Sonic's decision even though it was obvious what the choice would be.

Without a word of objection, Sonic kneels down in front of the queen. He bobs his head up and down sadly as to say, "Do what you have to do."  
The queen understood what Sonic's head nod had meant, "You have chosen correctly and you will die with honor, young hero." She smiles warmly. She tells two of her warriors to prepare for the extraction by nodding to them one at a time and they knew what that meant without the use of words.

Slowly beginning to sob, Tails and Amy watch as they are about to witness the end of Sonic the hedgehog; Tail's dear friend and Amy's true love.  
Also starting to sob, Sonic says in his mind, "I'm so sorry, Tails and Amy, but there's no other way." He lets out a quiet gasping sob and tears begin to trickle down his face and to the stone floor.

The two echidna warriors prepared their diamond headed staffs by charging it up and letting the electric-like energy flow through them. The entire area became quiet with suspense except for the quiet sobs of Tails and Amy in the background. The ends of the staffs were just about to touch Sonic's sides when a cry came from the deep fog. It was a cry for them to stop.

The queen orders the warriors to stop by holding up her hand and carefully listening to the voice, "Who dares interfere with the execution?" she shouts at the mysterious voice, "show yourself!" she orders.

Out of the thick gray fog appears Tikal. She's frightened and worried at the same time.

"Why do you trespass where you do not belong anymore, Tikal!?" the queen growls.

"A spirit can belong wherever it lingers, my queen." Tikal corrects.

"That is not an acceptable answer, I demand a real one."

Tikal steps forward and rises as she tries to negotiate, "I come to talk you out of this madness my queen!", "If you think taking the life of Mobius's greatest hero will make your world right again, then you yourself have gone insane!"

Being insulted by someone lower in rank than her made the queen angry. She slowly stands up from her throne, "How dare you talk to me in such a manner!" she shouts

"I apologize, my queen. But you yourself should know that this hedgehog is not the cause of this, It is your anger and thirst for revenge that has brought your world into darkness." She glances at an empty corner where an echidna warrior would stand to represent the 7th chaos emerald if it still existed, "and I understand why, but this is not the right path!"

The queen and the warriors listened intently to her words.

"Killing this hero would not be doing good, but evil." She thinks she's made her point.

"I would be ridding the world of evil that many were blind to." the queen sneers back.

Tikal continues to stand up for Sonic. She raises her voice "If you could see your reflection, my queen, then you would see where evil has made its home." she finishes calmly

"I am not evil, nor will I ever become it!" the queen's face, as she shouted, looked older and her eyes had a red glow to them.

"Then look into your heart, and allow these poor creatures to leave, because death will only cause more problems!"  
The queen's face became light and calm again.

'Relinguish your need for revenge and you will be able to see how your world will be again filled with color!" Tikal finished with hope stretching from cheek to cheek with her smile.

The queen seems to look fine with no anger showing whatsoever. She stands straight and says, "You have spirit, Tikal; Coming here and risking everything just to save these poor defenseless creatures." she sounds as if she's about to forgive and forget and in a calming voice.

Tikal is standings there at the top of those steps looking hopeful that no one has to die.

Sonic on the other hand had no idea what was going to happen. He was still on his knees waiting to die. for some odd reason, the air felt heavier and colder.

"But unfortunately," the queen began, "Nothing can change my mind."

Two warriors come up behind Tikal and restrain her by holding her arms behind her back.

Tikal panics, "You can't do this!" She screams at the top of her lungs.

Unfortunately, no begging or pleading will stop the queen from avenging the lost chaos emerald. She gives a slight nod to the warriors on both sides of Sonic.

The warriors jam their spears into Sonic's sides to continue the extraction. When the spears touched Sonic's sides, gold light swam out and disappeared into the diamond, this went on for a bit.

Sonic screams in agony at first until the pain began to subside. He felt tired and weak. It was getting harder for him to hold himself up when the muscles in his arms were about to give out. The world in front of him turned blurry and his eye lids felt heavier.

Someone was coming, everyone heard it. The scream was quiet at first but became louder and louder the closer it got. when it sounded close enough, the person jumped through the thick fog and landed in front of Sonic. The person turned around and punched the two warriors away from Sonic.

The warriors fell down and away from Sonic. The spears clanged against the stone floor.

It appears as though Knuckles has come to save the day. He turns around towards the queen. He doesn't look happy to see her.

The queen points at Knuckles and shouts, "Seize him!"

The warriors were about to attack until Knuckles spoke first.

"Stay where you are!" He commanded, and they obeyed. Knuckles takes a look around the area and notices his friends are being held captive, including Tikal. He looks down at Sonic who is looking pitiful and weak because of the brutal shocking he endured. He looked back at the queen, "I suggest you let my friends go before things get a lot uglier in here." He says.

"Threatening my life is not the best way to save your creatures, Knuckles." she sneers.

"My queen, I'm not meaning to sound threatening, I'm only trying to help." Knuckles wasn't exactly powerful enough to stop her if it came to that, so he tried his best not to accidentally sound threatening.

"As a former guardian of the master emerald, you can no longer help me." She looks at a couple of warriors, "Take him away!" She orders.

Two warriors come along and grab Knuckles arms.

They're about to drag Knuckles away when he punches them back and yells, "No!"

The warriors fly back even farther and they have a burn mark on their chest from his punch that smokes.

Knuckles continues to protest, "This has gone on long enough, my queen!" He growls. Knuckles has another idea up his sleeve, but it's hard for him to share. He takes a deep breath and says calmly, "Take me instead..." He kneels down and bows his head.

"Why should I do you this honor?" The queen asks.

"I'm just as responsible or more so for the murder of the 7th chaos emerald." He looks up at the queen, "It was my responsibility and I should be punished, not Sonic."

"You make a good point and I shall see to it that you are punished properly." She says bitterly, "But this not fix the problem of the darkness that surrounds my world" she gestures to the fog around them.

"I have a solution for that, also. If you would allow me to demonstrate..." He waits for permission as he looks back at the ground.  
The queen nods and Knuckles could feel that.

Knuckles stands up, walks over to a fallen spear with the diamond on the end and picks it up. He then walks over to Sonic who's lying on the ground as weak as he can be at the moment. Knuckles kneels down and looks him in the eye, "I'm going to need your help here, buddy..."

Sonic nods and smiles, "It's good to see you again." He chuckles.

Knuckles smiles also, "Take a deep breath, Sonic."

Sonic does his best to breath in as much as he can before feeling a sharp pain in his side again.

Knuckles has touched the spear to Sonic's side but this time the energy that was taken out of him is going back in.

In minutes, Sonic was feeling more and more energized.

When Knuckles was done, he stood back up.

Sonic stood up beside Knuckles.

Knuckles wasn't done though and he told Sonic that.

"What else is there?" Sonic asks.

Knuckles rubs his hands together and stands eye to eye with Sonic, "Take another deep breath."

Sonic takes another deep breath and closes his eyes.

Knuckles hands start to glow a bright gold. He takes Sonic's hands and takes a deep breath himself. His hands became brighter and then the gold

light traveled up his arms. This was feeling too intense for him since he's never felt this much power in him before even when he transformed into his super and hyper form in the past. His face tensed up as if he was feeling sick.

Sonic on the other hand didn't feel anything at all, it was completely painless.

When Knuckles was done, He stumbled backwards and onto his knees. He was feeling weak now. He looked at the queen, "You see, there's a much better way to get what you wanted." He says with heavy breathing, "Now you may do as you please, my queen."

With his body full of energy and his brain fully functional now, he can understand what's about to happen. He can remember what Knuckles said, _Take me instead,_ he had said to the queen and Sonic was somehow able to overhear and remember that. He walks in between the queen and Knuckles, "I don't think so, lady." he says to the queen.

Even Knuckles was getting annoyed with Sonic, he shook his head in disappointment.

The queen was also losing her patience. She materializes her own staff, "I've had enough!" and thrusts it into Sonic's stomach.

Sonic flies backward and lands on his stomach just a couple of feet from Knuckles.

"No more objections, this echidna has made his decision to die with honor!" the queen announces, "If anybody tries to stop me again, they will die!"

Sonic looks up to see more warriors surrounding Knuckles that it was hard to see him, he wonders what they're doing.

Knuckles stands up without a hint of fear on his face. He closes his eyes but reopens one to look at Sonic and smile at him. He re-closes his eye.

The warriors take out their diamond staffs, position it towards Knuckles and jab it into all sides of him.

It was as if Knuckles had done this before with the relaxed look he kept on his face the whole time. It's like you couldn't tell if it hurt him or not. Light surrounds the bottom of Knuckles at first, but then his whole body turned to light. The body of light shot up into the sky and pierced the dark clouds. The entire sky then lit up with golden light.

Everyone looked up at the beautiful sky in awe. Even Tails and Amy had forgotten about their dead friend for a minute or two.  
Sparkling confetti dust then rained down on everyone. Sonic held out his hand to catch one and immediately the little sparkle of dust cleaned his glove of dirt. He stood up and looked around to see that the dust was clearing the fog. In seconds, he could see farther than he could before; there were many trees and water streams, flowers bloomed in an instant and the stone floor beneath his feet looked brand new. This dimension was getting it's color back and not because of the queen's thirst revenge, they really needed the chaos energy back into their world. But nothing could distract him long enough to get his own revenge against the queen. He looks at her with fire in his eyes and starts charging after her screaming. When he thought he was going to get her, one of her warriors stepped in his way and pointed his diamond staff at him.

A bright light from the staff nearly blinded him and he tried to cover his eyes from it. When he uncovered his eyes, he notices that he's back in Amy's house. He's in the same spot when he was actually sent to the other dimension.

Amy and Tails were also sent back to their world. They lie on the couch unaware of what just happened. But when they see Sonic sitting their near the door, they feel a little relieved to see him alive.

Feelings of dread overwhelmed Sonic and he began silently sobbing to himself about the loss of his friend, Knuckles. He crosses his legs and just cries into his lap.

Amy runs to Sonic's side and begins to cry too. She holds Sonic tight in her arms and cries into his shoulder while Sonic does the same into her shoulder.

Tails comes over to his side too an cries with them for the loss of their friend Knuckles. He lies his head on Sonic's back shoulder and weeps.

It was a long night for them. They cried all night until they ran out of tears or were exhausted from all the crying. They all fell asleep in Amy's house; Her and Sonic cuddled in her bed and Tails crashed on the couch with red puffy eyes and a warm blanket over him. They fell asleep until the next morning, the news about his death wasn't as depressing and they just accepted it as fate.


	9. Epilogue

In the early hours of the morning, Sonic had woken to find Tails gone from the living room couch and the house entirely. Amy is still sound asleep and so Sonic makes sure the blanket is secure over her body to keep her warm. He kisses heron the forehead before leaving the house. Once outside, He takes a deep breath of that sweet morning scent which made a smile stretch upon his cheeks. He ventures off down the dirt road until he reaches Tail's workshop at the shoreline of the beach. He took a look at the ocean and noticed that Angel Island is still gone; perhaps they don't want Sonic or anyone else to set foot on it ever again. He can also see Tails inside of the workshop with his head hovering over the workbench.

Tails had been doing his best to make new parts for the Tornado that had washed up on shore the day before. He didn't know Sonic was on his way when he showed up behind Tail's unannounced. He nearly jumped out of his skin when Sonic appeared beside him. When he realized who it was, he took deep breaths and relaxed, "Oh, it's just you." He laughs at himself.

"A little jumpy, are we?" Sonic jokes.

Tail's shrugs, "Well being kidnapped and having your life threatened isn't exactly my strong suit." He says with a pinch of sarcasm.

A heavy silence drifts between them.

"How're you holding up?" Tails asks.

Sonic shrugs and sighs heavily, "You know it wouldn't have hit me so hard if I had a chance to say goodbye, you know?" he looks at Tails for confirmation.

"I feel the same way." Tails replies.

"Well one thing's for sure," Sonic puts his arm over Tail's shoulder and looks at him, "No matter what fate has in store for us, I won't go losing another best friend." He smiles at him and Tails does the same.

"Same here."

On a computer desk on the other end of the room, the fake yellow chaos emerald begins to shake and vibrate.

Sonic and Tails were kind of freaked out by that. They decided to check it out anyways. Once they were close enough, they looked at each other and back at the emerald. Sonic slowly lays a hand on the emerald and then for no reason, the emerald stops shaking. When Sonic touched that emerald, he went into a sort of trance like state. He looks like he's spacing out or daydreaming.

Tails didn't understand what was going on; he kept watching and waiting for Sonic to come back to reality.

A smile crept over Sonic's face and his hand left the emerald.

"What happened?" Tails asks with worry.

Sonic chuckles, "He's alive, so to speak." He speaks so quietly it was almost a whisper. He was just so surprised and speechless at the same time. He wanted to cry tears of joy, but he didn't want to waste anymore tears this early in the morning.

"How?!" Tails demanded an answer.

Sonic shrugs, "He wouldn't say. His exact words were *you don't need to worry, I'm alive and well*."

"We should go find him and rescue him then!" Tail's goes to pick up the emerald when Sonic puts his hand on top of his.

"We were too close last time, I think we should lay low and be happy Knuckle's is alive in some shape or form."

Tails sighs and takes his hand off the emerald, "You're right. I mean what's the point of risking it all if we don't know what we're dealing with in the first place?" he admits.

"I think we should just let nature choose the best answer for that." Sonic pats Tails on the shoulder and goes back towards the workbench. He picks up some tools, "Now let's see if we can't fix up the tornado, huh?" He waves the tools around and starts drumming on the bench with them.

Tails laughs, "I think you should let me do the fixing, you can just be my assistant."

Sonic hands Tails the tools, "you got it, buddy."

During the entire morning, Sonic & Tails worked on fixing the plane, they never took a break and they never looked back at the chaos emerald on the nearby table. Even though they have no idea where Knuckles is, it sort of feels like he never left.

The End.


End file.
